Cloisters in English Palaces in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries

Abstract

Between the early 12th and late 13th centuries, a number of royal and episcopal residences incorporated or were planned around covered walkways, for which the word 'cloister' was sometimes used. The form may have originated in monastic planning conventions, although the two earliest survivals, the 12th-century episcopal palaces at Sherborne and Old Sarum, were configured differently to each other. By the mid-12th-century, cloisters had also been adopted for entirely secular palaces, including the royal retreat at Everswell, for which alternative prototypes in Islamic architecture have also been suggested. 13th-century documents indicate that several cloisters were associated with queens, and suggest that cloisters had come to be regarded as adjuncts of the garden and the chamber rather than the church or domestic chapel.